“Great acting can be almost a psychotic mix of self-consciousness and unself-consciousness. And that's the terrible conflict. You have to be free to jump off into that volcano and you have to be pathologically self-conscious.”

“To be in this business and have tremendous integrity and only make distinguished choices is very tough. Denzel Washington's career is an enormous luxury. Compare him to Wesley Snipes. Do you think that they set out for it to be that way? All actors set out for the same thing: to make both entertaining films and important films.”

“Sometimes, you know, the president is a father-like figure in American society, to most Americans, even today, no matter how cynical we've become. And people don't want to think that daddy's a bum all the time. They don't want to think that Daddy's a liar, a cheat and a fraud.”

“There's less critical thinking going on in this country on a Main Street level - forget about the media - than ever before. We've never needed people to think more critically than now, and they've taken a big nap.”